After he served a mission, Elder Carpenter said, he was overcome with a paralyzing fear of public speaking, which became a stumbling block in college, professionally and in his Church service. With the support of his wife and help of the Lord, he learned to overcome this fear by focusing on others and the message that needed to be conveyed.
Did you see the silver bullet? It's in the last sentence.
If you are freaking out about speaking or teaching then chances are you are focused on yourself.
This is the wrong focus.
The Silver Bullet
Your focus should be on teaching what Heavenly Father wants you to teach in the way He wants you to teach it and how to do that in a way that is best for those you are teaching.
This is other focused. It gets the pressure off of you and your performance and onto where it belongs, the message and the recipients.
If you are getting stressed about your "performance" you will tie yourself up in knots.
If you are stressed about doing exactly what Heavenly Father wants you to do in the way He wants you to do it you will be receptive to His guidance and His inspiration. Tailoring your message to your audience will also involve thought and inspiration.
Let me show you how it works.
How to Focus Your Talk
If you are instructed to speak on tithing then quiz the leader who gave you this assignment on WHY you were assigned that topic.
You need to find out a couple of things.
- Do they want the audience informed on what tithing is?
- Do they want the audience inspired to be full tithepayers?
- Do they want the audience instructed on how to be a full tithe payer?
They probably have some problem or intent in mind. Pull it out of them if you have to.
If they're clueless, and sometimes they are, you have to come up with it yourself. This is where inspiration comes in.
If you are teaching, the answer to this question is probably in the "lesson objective" at the top. Pay attention to that.
Given what knowledge of your audience you have, decide on something, pray about it, and see if you get confirmation. If not, go to the next step anyway.
Research Your Talk/Lesson
Read, read, read! You have a topic, start reading everything about it. I usually go back about 5-10 years to all the General Conference talks on a subject.
It goes without saying that you should read everything the scriptures say on the subject.
A good place to start is simply reading everything on your subject in the
Topics and Questions site.
Take notes and especially take down any ideas you have or receive. Likely, you will be receiving inspiration.
As you read and think, things will come together. You'll probably get several "Aha" moments.
I'll bet that you will end up having more material than you need for your lesson/talk.
Organize Your Talk/Lesson
Try and look at all your notes and ideas as a whole. Are there some obvious themes? Is there something you can organize together as subjects?
For example, if you are giving a talk on how to be a full tithe payer you could pull out examples of how people do it like paying when each paycheck is achieved, paying once a year when you resolve everything, etc.
When you've got a handful of subjects, decide if you've got too many (probably more than 4) or just enough (probably about 2-3) to organize everything under.
Don't try and cover everything. Reduce it to just a few ideas and try not to get distracted by tangents, especially interesting tangents. They might deserve an entire talk or lesson themselves.
Constantly ask yourself some questions like, "Should I include this?" or "Should I not include this?" Pay attention to how you feel about things and follow the promptings.
The worst thing to do is decide to include something because YOU want to include it even though you feel conflicted. Feeling unsure or conflicted is the Spirit telling you not to include it.
I've deleted some of what I thought was my best stuff over the years because I didn't feel like Heavenly Father wanted me to include it. I'm glad I followed these promptings. I regretted it when I went with my own inclinations.
Introduction/Conclusion
Make certain you introduce your topic and conclude it in an obvious manner. Your topic and purpose might be obvious to you but it won't be obvious to your listeners. Make it obvious.
You should get as explicit as possible saying something like, "Being a full tithe payer is crucial and this is how you can do it."
Result?
By focusing on Heavenly Father, the message, and your listeners, you'll get the emphasis off of yourself.
Relax, you'll do just fine! If you have the Spirit with you, you'll do even better.
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